Protest Against PLO

NEW HAVEN, Conn.--More than 30 students held a silent vigil at Yale last week to protest the presence of Political Union (PU) speaker Ghassan Bishara, a Palestinian journalist and supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Students outside the classroom where he was parking held candles and signs and passed condemning the PLO the Yale Daily News reported last week.

Although the PU invited Bishara to speak. PU president Joel Robin, secretary Greg Baruch, and several other members objected to Bishara's presence and joined the protest.

Being president of the PU doesn't mean you don't have the right to your own opinion, Robin said.

Originally, the PU invited Hatem Hussain executive director of the PLO's Palestine Information Office in Washington Bishara offered to come instead when Hussain become all and was forced to cancel.

Hussain was invited to address the PU last fall by PU vice president Andrea Charters, who also thought 20 other, speakers on the Middle East.

Hussain and two others agreed to attend the PU three-part series of talks on the Middle East.

The Branford College Council (BCC), was drawn into the controversy in March when it invited Hussain to cat with interested student in the Branford dining hall.

David Wecht, Branford '84, said the BCC did not have the authority to sponsor such a controversial speaker, and the council had not sufficiently publicized its vote on the invitation.

"There wasn't really a conflict within the council. The only conflict there was came from a very small minority of one--David Wecht," said former PU president Charles Thompson, who was also president of the BCC at the time.